


Forgotten Childhood

by Maggi8noodlesalfredo2lasagne



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Childhood Memories, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2019-11-29 12:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18223217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maggi8noodlesalfredo2lasagne/pseuds/Maggi8noodlesalfredo2lasagne
Summary: Here we go back to a time when the girl was not just a girl, but a beloved daughter, and when a brilliant boy travels to a swamp in Koba with his mother.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been curious about Alina and the Darkling's childhood. So this is my first ever published fanfiction and I decided to give it a go.  
> The first story is the origin of the Sun Summoner.

“Alina, your father’s come back.” The mother gently nudges her daughter to look up at the returning beet farmer.  
Unlike his petite wife and tiny child, the farmer was a large, muscular man. His face was kind and jolly beneath his straw-blond hair, his beaming smile upon the sight of his daughter running towards him, arms out.  
“Papa!”  
“Sunheart,” he cheered, easily lifting up the girl and swinging her around, making her laugh and giggle.  
He walks up the porch and kisses his wife on the cheek, his eyes full of love and her smile full of heavenly bliss.  
A small family, not rich in wealth, but love.

The girl is walking beside her father along a dusty road, going to town to buy more vegetables and eggs. Mama was making her favorite egg porridge.  
Soon enough, the girl’s legs begin to tire and lag behind her father’s long strides.  
Chuckling, the farmer picked up his daughter and placed her on his shoulders.  
Approaching the two spires of rock, he pointed them out for his daughter. “Look Alina, those are the two mills. They mark our way home.”  
“Two mills,” the girl repeated, making sure to remember these markers for home.

“My little firebird, what are you drawing now?” Mama asks. They could not afford paint, so Alina used beet juice to doodle on the counter as she watched her mother prepare the beets.  
Alina looked up, face flushed with pride. “A sun, mama.”  
A small, swirly sun in shades of reddish-pink. That in itself was not so special. But the sunbeams were streaks of flame, sparkling at the borders. Swirling in the air. Dancing on fingers. Something private between mother and daughter.  
The mother smiled before waving her fingers at Alina, “Well drawn, Alina. My sunheart, little star. Shall we play with the sun now?”  
Eyes darting outside for unlikely spies, both mother and daughter grinned at each other conspiratorially before wiggling their fingers and casting sun rays on the counter.  
It was their family secret and it would stay that way.  
Alina asked her mother, her voice curious. “Mama, why do you call me a firebird?”  
Mama did not give her an answer until hours had gone by and she was tucking Alina into her bed.

_Once upon a time, there lived Baba Anezka, an ancient Fabrikator who had made her home in a cave of mirrors. Anezka did not just use her powers to make her perfect mirrors, she used magic._  
Travellers who come seeking mirrors sometimes wanted something more than a pretty looking glass. Baba Anezka gave it to them. Mirrors that showed whoever gazed upon them the truth of themselves. Mirrors that unmasked illusions and deceptions. Mirrors that could tell the past, present and future.  
Men grew mad when they saw her mirrors. Women wasted away before the visions of their fulfilled dreams. Fools, all of them. They had asked for too much.  
Anezka never really cared for her magic mirrors. They were just party tricks to amuse her in her solitude.  
Then there came a day when Anezka chose to have a child, someone to share her home and solitude. Someone to fill the void in her life.  
When her son was born, Baba Anezka was crying tears of joy through her childbirth pains. At last, her loneliness would cease.  
Then there came the shock. Her son was not a Fabrikator. He was Grisha, yes. A Grisha who could summon the sun. 

Alina sits beside her father on their cart, watching the tails of their oxen swishing back and forth. It was their time to go to the market and sell their beetroots.  
Alina sat back and looked up at the sky, wishing to summon the light to her but unable to in the public eye.  
Her father cracked jokes and waved to neighbours. They responded in turn, smiling at the well-liked farmer.  
Alina sat above the other children running around in the dirt. She had never really played with them much. An hour every day was the norm, two would be the max.  
It was not because she felt different from them. It was because she longed to return home and summon the light with her mother. She wanted the light more than her friends then. Her father and mother were more than enough company for her, and she treasured their time together.

_Artur was the first of his kind. He trained under his mother’s watchful eye but eventually grew bored of his isolation. He begged his mother to forgive him but he had to go explore a life outside their home of mirrors._  
Baba Anezka shrugged. All children had to leave their nest. It was nature, and she had not taken her time with her son for granted. Never greedy for what she could not have, Baba Anezka gave her son her blessing and accepted his departure.  
Of course, she also threatened him to send her letters or she would use one of her magic mirror portals to drop in unannounced.  
Artur set up a home in the valley near the southern border. It was not so much the location as the woman he had fallen in love with. An inferni and an amplifier.  
Baba Anezka sent the bride a pretty mirror to look on things far away. all she had to do was speak the name of the object she wished to see, and it would appear on glass.  
In time, Artur sent his mother news that she would be a grandmother.  
Their baby girl was like her father in power.  
Around this time, Baba Anezka received some houseguests. A beautiful woman with dark flowing hair, and her son with a voice like glass.  
Baba Anezka saw their powers and wondered, but was not afraid. She shared her knowledge with them but never once mentioned her son, granddaughter, or that there were Sun Summoners to balance the Darklings.

The mother holds her daughter close to her, hugging her for reassurance and protection. They are watching the Second Army go by their valley, off to battle the Shu. Grisha in red and blue, _oprichniki_ in charcoal.  
Alina watches them but shrinks back into her mother’s embrace. She does not see her mother looking at them not only with fear, but with wistful curiosity. As if wondering what her life would have been like if she had revealed her powers to the examiners.

_Artur needed to protect his wife and newborn daughter. He had seen the Firebird once or twice. He sought to claim its power._  
While his wife looked after their daughter and taught her secrecy, he hiked towards the Firefalls.  
When he returned weeks later, Artur had changed. His hair shone white like snow-blown feathers, his eyes a sharp golden gaze, sharp as a hawk. Artur wept. He had slain the Firebird, but while the Firebird gave up its life, he had given up his mortality. No longer would he age with his beloved. No, Artur would watch his family age and die, while he stayed young, flying far above the Valley of the Arch as the new, reborn Firebird.  
Baba Anezka heard the news and sent Artur what consolation she could give: a mirror that would allow him to disguise himself, so he could at least pretend to age while he raised his daughter.  
Along with the ability to change form, Artur had gained new powers as well. Diamond tears were irritating but the visions he saw were useful, and frightening. Artur saw a possible future where Morozova’s heirs would cause the downfall of his unique bloodline. Should a Sun Summoner ever be revealed to Morozova’s sons, his descendants would have the sun taken from them, given over to strangers.  
Artur was a good man, but he loved his power fiercely and loathed the idea of sharing it. He firmly instructed his daughter to never show her powers to the public, and when she had married and had her own children, she taught them her father’s lessons, and so on.  
Once his daughter had died, Artur had resumed his bestial form and roamed the skies, hunting wild beasts and eating them raw. The men who hunted him were lured to their deaths on the magnificent waterfall, or else burnt to ash scattering on soldier trees. 

This was the story Alina eventually learnt in her bed, eyes wide to think she had the blood of the Firebird in her veins. This was why they must keep their powers a secret, her mother had warned, just as selfish as her forefather.  
Keep their powers secret, but use them to remain healthy. That was the key.  
And so it was, when the Shu attacked, when Alina was hidden in their secret bunker, that she hid her powers so she would not be cut up by the Shu.  
When her mother and father ran outside to defend their home, Alina prayed that her mother would use her power and survive, that her father would beat the Shu away.  
When the raid was over, when all that surrounded Alina was charred wood and ash, she did not let a single ray of light shine. How could she, when all was numb and dark inside?  
Alina never once summoned, even when she was left alone at a cold orphanage, even as her appetite vanished and sleep was beyond her reach. She could not, not when the warmth of her sun would burn her with the painful memory of her loving mother, now forever gone.  
And when the boy came, Alina had new reason to hide. In time, she would forget she was Grisha, just as she would forget the faces of her parents. All she would remember was that if she wanted to survive, to keep what she loved safe, she had to hide.

_Artur beat his wings furiously, recognizing the absence of the hunter in the boy, and the Sun Summoner in his heiress._  
So, this was one of the sons of Morozova who would steal his family’s power.  
Artur flew away, ignoring the insignificant Squaller who tried to bring him down to death. Hatred for Morozova flared in his heart, his family’s line of power, soon to be stolen.  
Artur let out a shrill cry, at last finding newfound purpose in his immortality. He would be the survivor of his family, the one who had held on to his power, power that would outshine those thieves.  
And who knows, maybe his heiress would still pass along his genes and their power would still thrive in their bloodline. 


	2. The healer in the swamp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baghra takes Aleksander to a swamp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration was slow so I worked with what I had, determined that this story should be about the same length as Alina's.

His name was to be Jona.  
The boy with intelligent gray eyes let the name settle in around him. Soon, it would replace Khan, the Shu boy with silky black hair tied up in a knot on his head.  
Khan relaxed back on his temporary bed in the inn.  
They had come to Koba, seeking rumours and to trade for food. His Shu was already perfect and no one suspected his Ravkan heritage.  
His mother had set up a makeshift stall, advertising her skills as a wise woman, selling _otkazat’sya_ herbs and fake love charms. Naïve folk listened to her offers, but men saw her face and bought the items sometimes just to have a chance to talk to the astonishing beauty.  
The Shu guards knew a fake sale when they saw one. They saw her stall and sneered at the hoax of it all, never once suspecting that the beautiful lady they whistled at was more powerful than a wise woman.  
Khan had taken up learning the zither from a street performer who had taken a liking to the quiet boy. He had always had a keen ear for music. While his mother sold and listened for gossip, he would explore the streets. When _madraya_ was done for the day and would begin to seek her son, she would either find him at the candy stall, gobbling too many caramelized nuts before dinner, or she would find him sitting before the old man plucking at the strings with enough finesse to earn her son’s admiration.

“There is talk that the restaurant owner’s daughter found a witch in the swamp nearby. Someone to cure her of boils and pimples and attract the prince’s eye.”  
Khan nearly rolled his eyes. A Healer can clear blemishes away, but even real witches never bothered to mess with love. They were too blinded by power to be sidetracked by the silly emotion.  
“We leave tomorrow.”  
The boy stilled. His zither lessons would come to an end now. He knew that much. There was no point trying to raise an argument or plea to his mother. Education came before pleasure.  
Maybe someday, when he was grown, he would finally master just one instrument. Just one. But not now.  
Khan only nodded and took a large bite off the sweet meat he bought for a midnight snack. The sweetness helped. Any tears that might have welled up were quickly shoved back inside.  
His mother didn’t like to see him cry.

That same night, the boy saw fallen silk on the floor, moonlight shining on his naked scalp.  
He needed a new look. And long hair would only be a nuisance to clean in the swamp anyway. His own _madraya_ had already cut her hair to her chin.  
Khan didn’t care. Hair would grow back. He only wished he could bid his teacher goodbye.

The journey to the swamp was short. The journey inside the swamp was long and tiring. And sticky. And stinky.  
The mud sucked on their feet, slowing them down.  
Jona had long since finished the sweets he brought for the journey. They would only have attracted flies.

“Zhalia,” the healer greeted.  
She was old, small and reed-thin. Her gray hair tied behind a headscarf.  
His mother greeted their new hostess. “Oba. Thank you for having us.”  
Oba took his mother’s hands and gave them a firm squeeze. “Grisha have to look out for Grisha. Or else, who will?”  
The healer’s dark eyes shifted to Jona. “And this must be Jona. You look so much like your mother.”  
Jona bowed respectfully to her, but Oba patted his shoulders heartily. “No need for such formalities here, boy. We’re in a swamp, not a city.”  
Jona nearly gagged. The swamp stench was putrid but diluted. Up close to Oba, it was worse. The swamp stink was there, yes, but so was the odour of an unwashed body.

It was a hard choice to make.  
Sleep inside the organized cottage, letting your sense of smell die from the burning stench. (Oba never mopped the place, and some herbs she kept were indeed awful). Or sleep outside in better air, at the risk of being devoured by a predator.  
Oh wait, never mind. Their pillows were stuffed with dried lotus buds. Jona didn’t know how Oba had gotten them, but he was not going to complain.  
“What do you think? Can you handle staying here for a few months?”  
Yes. His nose would recover…hopefully.  
“What did you see?”  
A large cottage, with different levels so Oba could easily access the trees and walk along the branches. That was how she gathered the ingredients she needed for her medicines. The doors were sturdy to keep out predators. Mosquito nets hung over beds, sofas and windows. Trinkets decorated the house. And surprisingly, there was a finely furnished bathing chamber with perfumed oils. Oba was had made a fine living off the people of Koba. And the house was well camouflaged using the swamp wood.  
Oba has been doing this for a long time. She bears old scars, but not recent ones. She has learned from her experience. She walks lightly and stealthily, learning to hide in the swamp and travel in the trees. Her body odour has come from being too long in the swamp, her own nose long since dead and now a fossil on her face. As such, she has abandoned the need for hygiene. Why bother here in the swamp?  
The old lady is cautious but undoubtedly greedy for their power, for their protection. He could see it in her eyes, in the way she so familiarly initiated contact.

Swamp food is mostly meat.  
Breakfast is eel and frog legs. Lunch is rice with fish and vegetables. Dinner is wild game. It is a surprise every night. Deer, squirrel, alligator, snake, badger, and so on.  
Jona misses sugar.  
Oba catches on and sucks up by bringing the sweet meat every week.

Zhalia hides the cottage from hunters. True, few men venture into the swamp. There are better hunting grounds elsewhere, but these men come looking for a witch.  
Previously, whenever they had come close, Oba would take to the trees and hide there. There she would secretly watch the men ransack her house and swiftly, silently take them out one by one. Stopping their hearts and dragging them far away to be food for some beast.  
It was a cruel death, but not as cruel as the one they would have given her.

In exchange for coin, Oba teaches mother and son what she knows.  
Jona had been excited for the first lesson, because Oba said they would go looking for Shu alligators, a dangerous animal he had never seen before.  
It had taken time for the healer to find one, and when they did, she positioned them a safe distance away before giving a simple instruction. Watch the alligator.  
Jona watched with Zhalia. It was not long before they realized the meaning. Watch the alligator and learn from it.  
Learn to be still, even when something new happens. Like when intruders come.  
Zhalia told Jona he would need to learn this when he was surprised, so he would not let others know he had been taken off guard.

Now watch the snake and mimic its flexibility. Watch the frog jump. Watch the squirrels climb trees. Watch. Watch. Watch.  
Oba had learned from the animals, and now would teach humans.  
Jona could now bend his body like never before, jump higher than ever.  
He could move on trees almost as agilely as Oba.

Oba keeps a distance but watches surreptitiously as Zhalia teaches her son darkness.  
To erect a wall of blackness between trees so as to hide the hut. To mimic the silhouettes of a beast from far away.  
The animals panic when their eyes are blinded, turning away from the Grisha. Their empty stomach no match for the instinct of self-preservation.  
Jona would keep slashing his arm when Oba was gone. His mother’s shouts and lectures about this particular lesson were so repetitive that he had grown deaf to them.  
No matter how much emotion he summoned, no matter the intention or will power, the tree in front of him would not break. It stood in front of him, weak and thin, but without a single nick.

At night, while Zhalia helps Oba prepare the meal, Jona sits outside on the porch, carefully away from the edge. He has discovered a new music out here. a symphony of water ripples, frog splashes, crickets singing, and leaves rustling from a squirrel’s passage.  
It is lonely outside. He is always lonely.

One day, Oba comes home triumphant with a paper bag still somehow hot.  
Jona is tasting heaven on his lips. Oba had gone to the market and bought a huge bag of fried fritters dunked in powdered sugar.

They came to learn, and learn they have. Now they must go.  
Oba begs them to stay longer. She has been so lonely.  
Zhalia politely refuses. She is taking her son elsewhere to learn.  
Jona already knows what story his mother is cooking up. A mother training her son to be a monk. And while she pretends once more, he would sneak out of his room and go walking across the red roofs, testing his skills learnt in the swamp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What inspired me.  
> Mama Odie and beignets from the Princess and the Frog.  
> The Assassin and the Desert where Celaena learned to study animals.

**Author's Note:**

> Next up, Baghra and Aleksander visit the swamp in Koba where they find a stinky heartrender. Gotta figure out a story for that first...so could take a long while.


End file.
